Not long ago, after I had written an article in which I discussed white denial–the tendency for most white folks to reject the notion that racism is still a significant obstacle for people of color in the U.S.–I received an e-mail from a white man who insisted that my argument was itself racist.

His reason? According to his message, simply by stating that most white folks remain in denial about the extent of racism and discrimination against people of color, I had engaged in anti-white bigotry, since I had made a generalization about a racial group: in this case, the one that both he and I share.

He went on to offer an analogy that he felt proved my argument to be racist. “What if I were to write an article where I said ‘most black people are criminals’?” he asked. “Wouldn’t that be racist against blacks?” In other words, he argued, to make any comments about racial groups is inherently racist, and so my saying that most whites were in denial was every bit as bad as saying that most blacks are criminals.

Of course, and as I explained to him at the time, such an argument makes no sense at all. The reason it is racist to say that “most blacks are criminals,” is because such a position is based on racial stereotypes rather than factual information: it casts aspersions upon an entire group of people, based not on truth, but on the basis of ignorant prejudice. Most blacks are not criminals; indeed, the vast majority are not. There are about 28 million African Americans over the age of 12 in the U.S. (and thus eligible for inclusion in crime data), and only a small number of these (fewer than five percent) will commit a crime in a given year.

So while it would not be racist to note that black folks have a higher official crime rate than whites–this is a fact borne out by evidence, and which doesn’t necessarily cast a characterological judgment upon those it mentions–saying that most blacks are criminals is simply a lie, and to the extent it casts aspersions upon a racial group that can lead to their continued stereotyping, a racist lie at that.

To say that “most white folks are in denial” is not racist, because such a belief is not based on stereotypes about whites; rather, the claim is supported by what white folks actually say when asked if we believe racism to be a significant problem: the vast majority, in poll after poll answer that it is not, irrespective of the evidence to the contrary. And we have long believed that, so even in the early 1960s, at a time when in retrospect all would agree the nation was profoundly unequal in its treatment of people of color, whites told pollsters in overwhelming numbers (anywhere from sixty-five to nearly ninety percent) that blacks had equal opportunities in employment and education. White denial has been a hallmark of the nation’s racial history. Saying that is not racist, it is an incontrovertible fact.

Apparently, and if recent events are any indication, the difference between mentioning a group tendency, on the one hand, and casting aspersions upon the group in question, on the other, is something lots of folks can’t quite grasp. So, consider the uproar among many white Americans when presidential candidate, Barack Obama stated recently that his grandmother had been a “typical white person,” in that she would often have a negative reaction when encountering someone of a different race. The comment, made during a radio program the day after Obama’s now-famous speech on race from Philadelphia, was taken by an awful lot of whites as a racist assault, a blatantly prejudicial example of anti-white bigotry on the part of the U.S. Senator.

To many whites, still in a lather over the comments made by Obama’s pastor, Jeremiah Wright, the “typical white person” remark was only further confirmation that Obama is racist against white people. The story dominated talk radio for days, as well as letters to the editor of local and national papers, and I received hundreds of e-mails from folks demanding to know when I was going to speak out against Obama’s “defamation” of white people.

Interestingly, outrage over Obama’s remarks has manifested, despite how easy it is to confirm the utter accuracy of his comment–accuracy which itself disproves the notion that the statement about “typical” white people was racist. The fact is, if by “typical” one means the norm, the average (and what else, after all, could be meant by it?), then whites indeed, by our own admission, hold any number of negative, prejudiced, and ultimately racist beliefs about black people.

Evidence of this basic truth can be gleaned from any number of sources: opinion surveys, psychological tests like the Implicit Association Test, and several experiments that one can do (and I have done) time and again with white audiences, all with the same result: namely, confirmation that the “typical” white person (and I include myself in that by the way) does harbor internalized notions of white racial superiority or “betterness,” vis-a-vis African Americans.

Looking first at public opinion surveys just over the past fifteen years or so, roughly six in ten whites, by our own admission, adhere to at least one negative racial stereotype about blacks. According to a National Opinion Research Center survey in the early ’90s, over sixty percent of whites believe that blacks are generally lazier than other groups, 56% say that blacks are generally more prone to violence, and over half say that blacks are generally less intelligent than other groups (1). What makes these beliefs racist is that by assuming that blacks are more “prone” to violence and “less intelligent,” respondents are not merely signaling that blacks have higher crime rates, or score lower on various indicia of academic achievement–both of which are true, for reasons owing to the opportunity structure and the location of black communities relative to that structure–but instead are making assumptions about the inherent abilities and characters of black people.

A similar survey from 1993, conducted by the Anti-Defamation League, found that three in four whites accept as true at least one racist stereotype about African Americans, regarding such items as general laziness, propensity to criminality and violence, intelligence, or work ethic. And according to a 2001 survey, sixty percent of whites, approximately, admit that they believe at least one negative and racist stereotype of blacks: for example, that they are generally lazy, generally aggressive or violent, or prefer to live on welfare rather than work for a living (2). In fact, the belief in black preference for welfare over work is typically the most commonly believed of the stereotypes; this, despite the fact that only a very small percentage of African Americans–and for that matter, a minority of even poor African Americans–receive benefits from programs typically considered “welfare.”

Interestingly, whites often deny the importance of racism in determining the life chances of blacks, even as they give voice to beliefs that are themselves evidence of the very racial prejudice they deny. So, for instance, in one of the more respected opinion surveys from the 1990s, six in ten whites said that discrimination was less important in determining the position of blacks in society, than the “fact” that blacks “just don’t have the motivation or will power to pull themselves up out of poverty.”

But if most whites believe that blacks as a group are unmotivated or lazy, that is itself a racial generalization amounting to racism: ascribing a negative characterological trait to blacks as a group. Of course the irony should be apparent to all: on the one hand, whites are saying that blacks are lazy, but on the other they insist that racism–including the kind that holds African Americans in this low regard–would be of very little consequence to their ability to succeed; as if people imbued with that kind of bias would be able to fairly evaluate job applicants or students who were members of the presumed defective group!

Other studies stretching back nearly forty years have indicated a significant degree of white racial bias towards blacks, which we are almost always loath to acknowledge. But in one set of studies, when whites were told (falsely as it turns out) that they were hooked up to functioning lie detectors that would be able to ascertain if they were being dishonest when they claimed not to have any racist beliefs about blacks, they were far more likely to indicate biases up front. In other words, whites often deny our racial biases, even when those remain deeply ingrained. Research has suggested, for example, that many persons will feign a more liberal and non-prejudicial attitude than that to which they actually adhere, when asked questions about racial “others” on opinion surveys. Meaning that if roughly six in ten whites are willing to admit to serious anti-black prejudices of one form or another, the real percentages holding those beliefs are likely quite a bit larger.

Implicit Association Tests are even more decisive as to the extent of internalized and often subconscious, but nonetheless real, white racism. These tests, which measure response time to visual stimuli–specifically testing how quickly respondents associate briefly shown images of blacks or whites with either positive or negative words that are also briefly flashed on a screen–suggest that the typical white person does indeed harbor racial biases against African Americans. According to the research:

“…when given a test of unconscious stereotyping, nearly ninety percent of whites who have taken the test implicitly associate the faces of black Americans with negative words and traits such as evil character or failure. That is, they have more trouble linking black faces to pleasant words and positive features than they do for white faces. Most whites show an antiblack, pro-white bias on psychological tests. In addition, when whites are shown photos of black faces, even for only thirty milliseconds, key areas of their brains that are designed to respond to perceived threats light up automatically.” (3)

In my own work I have often conducted word association exercises, in which I ask participants to honestly tell me the first thing that pops in their heads when they hear certain words. Although there is no way to verify their answers, since I am relying on them to be honest, even in this non-controlled environment, in which participants could easily lie in order to seem less racist than they are in practice, the answers are quite revealing. When asked to envision a criminal, a person buying groceries with food stamps (or an electronic benefits card), a drug dealer or user, or a pregnant teenager, almost all white participants (and even large numbers of participants of color) respond that their first image was that of someone who was black or Latino/a.

This, despite the fact that over half of all crime is committed by non-Hispanic whites, most people using food stamps are white, more than seven in ten drug users are white (as are most dealers), and most pregnant teens are white as well. Although people of color have higher rates of crime, or welfare receipt, or teen pregnancies, it is simply false that the typical representative of any of these groups is black or brown. Thus, for people to think of a person of color when those words are mentioned is to acknowledge implicit biases, rooted in the conditioning that comes from numerous sources, media first and foremost among them.

On the other hand, if I ask people to envision an “all-American boy or girl,” or even worse, God, they invariably admit to envisioning white images (in the latter case, even those who admit to being atheists, because of the symbolic conditioning to which they have been subjected). Confirming my own experiments, researchers who have asked white focus group members to envision a “typical drug user,” report that upwards of 95 percent of whites report envisioning a black person, despite the fact that blacks only represent thirteen percent of all drug users, according to the Centers for Disease Control and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, while whites comprise approximately 70 percent of all drug users (4).

Of course, none of this should be interpreted to imply that whites are inherently racist, as if because of something intrinsic to our culture or biology. White bias against black folks is the direct result of environmental conditioning: media images that over-represent blacks as criminals relative to the share of crime that they commit, and images that, at least since the early ’70s, have overrepresented blacks as members of the welfare-dependent “underclass,” relative to the percentages of the long-term poor who are actually black. If one is subjected repeatedly to images of God, or all-American kids that are white, it ought not surprise anyone that such images would become ingrained in the minds of white folks, and many folks of color as well. Likewise, if one is repeatedly subjected to negative imagery of blacks–imagery that represents them as pathological and culturally defective–how shocking should it be that such images would influence the way in which whites come to view African Americans and their communities?

This is why it was ultimately so easy for whites to believe the stories coming out of New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, which suggested that black folks were raping and killing people en masse in the Superdome and Convention Center. These reports, all of which turned out to be false, and which were exposed as false by the media about a month after the city flooded (retractions that many Americans never heard, it should be noted), were never questioned at the time they were being reported by any mainstream media outlet. Looking at the comment boards on Nola.com during the tragedy–the main website for the city’s newspaper and media outlets–one could find hundreds of racist comments from whites who had bought the claims of black depravity, and were advocating machine-gunning those responsible, and letting the masses who were stuck downtown starve to death, because they were “animals” who didn’t “deserve to be saved.”

Needless to say, were a hurricane to take out Nantucket, or destroy the summer homes of the white and wealthy who vacation on Cape Cod, and were the media to broadcast rumors to the effect that rich white folks were raping and killing people in the local Episcopal church, no one would believe the reports without evidence, without bodies, without proof. But because of racism, you can say anything you like about black people, especially when they’re poor, and others will believe it, every word of it, without question.

So until white folks can demonstrate that we have transcended our racist conditioning, and until we no longer confirm our anti-black biases in test after test, and survey after survey, our defensiveness (indeed, outright anger) at the comments of Barack Obama, makes me wonder if we may be protesting just a bit too much, and giving away our hand in the process. To the extent there are some white folks who don’t envision a black person when they hear the term “drug user,” or who don’t see a white man when they hear the term “God,” or who don’t automatically think of an Arab Muslim when the term terrorist gets thrown around (because after all, there have been hundreds of terrorist bombings and arsons at abortion clinics by white Christians in the U.S. in the last two decades, not to mention the Unabomber, the Olympic Park Bomber, or Tim McVeigh), then so be it. But such persons shouldn’t get defensive on behalf of the majority of our white brothers and sisters who still think exactly those things: rather, they should be challenging them, and encouraging them to break out of the racist box into which years of conditioning have placed us–all of us, to at least some extent.

Our anger should be aimed at those who, by virtue of their racism, implicate us all in the sickness, rather than at those who merely point out that we indeed, are still carrying the virus.

(2) Lawrence Bobo, “Inequalities That Endure? Racial Ideology, American Politics, and the Peculiar Role of the Social Sciences,” in Maria Krysan and Amanda Lewis, eds. The Changing Terrain of Race and Ethnicity. Russell Sage Foundation: 2004: 19-20

Tim Wise is one of the most respected anti-racist writers and educators in the U.S., having spoken in 48 states and on over 400 college campuses. He has trained teachers, as well as corporate, government, media, and law enforcement officials on methods for dismantling institutional racism, and has contributed essays to 20 books. He is the author of Tim White on : White Privilige, White Like Me, Reflections on Race from a Priviledged Son, and Affirmative Action: Racial Preference in Black and White. Tim’s books, essays, special reports, DVDs and bio can be found at www.timwise.org

Comments

great reading this stuff. no fluff at all. i even went through some of the comments. thank you both, if i’ve never said it before.
i consider myself a realist. we live as a democratic peoples subject to the machinations of republic states here in these federated states of these united states.
we have an opportunity to adress, change, correct, evolve, resolve any difficulties in any relations existent between ourselves and each other as human beings and the state, which is monetized as a capitalist institution, some say.
i say we can work very well, perhaps best, if we work our democratic principles to the greatest good.
with 2/3 of those registered, voter citizens so voting, we can change any law in the land.
we can choose to select, at random, from the registered voter citizen population, those to serve in all elective, appointive, civil service positions (keeping salaries, benefits in place) on all levels-local/regional/ state/federal – in all functions as executive, legislative, judicial placement for 2 year non-concurrent, non-recurrent terms.
i think this would be the most effective way to overcome our racist past, the ongoing tortured present and a definitely continued scenario similar to that we have experienced over the past 200 years as our futute.
this should solve our equality problems; immigration issue; confounding inablity to teach children to learn; remove any and all reason any of us may have to limit ourselves by limiting each other.
we may even manage to make some, if not most of us, great.
thank you, thank you thank you.

I am eternally grateful to Tim Wise. And I wholly agree with this article with some minor exceptions not worthy of mention. I am a Black woman in my mid 40s who is tremendously fascinated with people relations. Were it in my power, I would craft this world into one fat joyous melting pot. That said, I make it my business to remain highly cognizant of White people’s behaviors and attitudes toward me and other Black people, as well as my/our behavior and attitude towards Whites. I am innately sensitive toward racism or racial prejudice and more so because I regularly contemplate the dynamics of human relations. I believe, since the 60s, racism has been at an all time high because of our beige President, not because of his policies. The blatant disrespect and hate-filled rants towards Obama have been unprecedented compared with any other administration. I was “comfortable” with the devil that I knew existed, but I sank to a new low of despair when the pretenders’ hoods were coming off like thousands of bad apples from a tree. In light of this and for several other reasons, I have taken to searching out honest Whites’ opinions of Blacks. In my experience, it has been such a rare find to hear or read of a White person’s admittance to self entitlement, a false sense of superiority, and unfounded biases towards Blacks. The responses to this article are not common, not to mention the article, not only because of content but also because of the absence of utter denial or hateful language that I’ve been accustomed to seeing when Whites are called out on this issue. Though, I have noticed how few have responded, perhaps being indicative of how many Whites actually read the article. It’s like the diversity sensitivity workshop on the job. The ones who need it most are seldom the participants. Still, the enlightenment that I’ve gained from honest White folks has gone a long way in my inner fight to eradicate my prejudices towards Whites. For decades, I have felt great disdain and mistrust towards Whites because of my anger over profound continued mistreatment and past injustices and atrocities toward Blacks. Though I have always been aware of my feelings, I recently accepted the reality that Blacks, for all the wrong reasons, may always be subject to racial intolerance. But I figured out that my problem is less the intolerance and more the inaction. In other words, I can “accept” that Whites are in denial, but it troubles me that most don’t care enough to want to search their hearts and souls for the truth or to deprogram or educate themselves when they detect inappropriate feelings and beliefs. I’ve spent years having dialogue and theorizing the whys/hows of Whites’ present and historical behavior toward people of color. There simply is no excuse. Every ethnic group has its ills and beauty. And every individual needs to be made accountable for his/her actions. I ultimately believe that we are all precious creations meant to serve a higher purpose than our own personal agenda. Hence, my spiritual beliefs/principles and deeper introspection have led me to begin to reconstruct my outlook on Whites and on race relations domestically and abroad. This is to say that while I will never relinquish the truth, I am committed to forgiveness and to being responsible for valuing each individual uniquely and fairly. And I believe that “reverse discrimination” is a misnomer. The implication is that discrimination in reverse is aimed at those who are responsible for its creation. No one ethnic group can take ownership of discrimination. We are all culpable where discrimination is concerned, and while we don’t have to deny what we feel, we should be held accountable for unfair, unmerited, and baseless views about individuals and whole groups. Years old wisdom and kindly expressed but one of the commenters, “We can’t judge what it’s like for others unless we’ve walked a mile in their shoes.” And that’s the understatement of the millennium.

I live in a lower class neighborhood, I witness some of the things you wrote about often. Those behaviors you spoke of aren’t the exclusive property of blacks, it seems to me to be a class issue. Have you ever shopped at a Walmart in the mid-west or the Bible belt? I have. One word…scary.

For most of my life I didn’t know what to think about this topic. Recently, it has become more clear simply from talking to the few black friends I have. A good friend of mine is a black woman from the Caribbean, and she experienced blatant racism while apartment hunting in LA when she first moved here a few years back. She is a well-spoken educated young lady with no discernible accent of ANY kind (she speaks flawless English), and had no problem with property managers on the phone, but had the door shut in her face a couple of times by them as soon as they saw her. ALL of my black male friends assure me that they are certain that they are singled out by their race when it comes to being pulled over by the police. They have often been pulled over for no apparent reason, then let go after being searched and showing that all paperwork was in order. I’m a white woman, I was pulled over once in my life; for driving in a bus lane then making an illegal u-turn. All I got was a ticket and my car wasn’t searched.

Many races of people, of all colors and from various countries have had it rough at one time or another. My ancestors are of Irish descent and undoubtedly had a hard time. The difference is that no one can look at me and know that, while black Americans are blatantly out there on the radar.

We can’t judge what it’s like for others unless we’ve walked a mile in their shoes, or at least asked some of our black friends!

I live in Atlanta. I hate to even say this, but it is my experiences with Blacks here that have made me more predjudiced in the last 10 years than ever in my 50 years of life. I am still voting for Obama for a zillion good reasons, but my experiences in reverse descimination and what I personally see day to day in ATL have made my opinion of Blacks more prejudiced than ever in my life. I do not have a Black best friend, or boyfriend, but I worked with them in restaraunts from 16 yrs on, and in many other jobs. I did not make racial jokes or laugh at racial jokes. I have threatened to throw people out of my car if they didn’t stop making rascist remarks.

My opinion started to change when the company I worked for was sued by 2 Black women for discrimination. This was a lie. They never showed up for work on time, and didn’t even make it out of the 90 day probation period before they were fired. Later it turned out this was their 3rd lawsuit of the same nature. They knew the ‘system’ was that it was easier and cheaper to pay out money than to go to court. I bought my first home in a predominantly Black neighborhood in ATL in 1999. Every day I witnessed or experienced some kind of shocking rudeness,crime,ignorance, and cruelty by Blacks. God help any dog owned by Blacks in ATL. If I went into a clothing or food shop, the Black employees would be rude or ignore me. When I asked for unemployment for the first time in my 35 years of working, I was denied by a Black worker. Every convenience store had Black panhandlers. Almost every day there was a story of Black teenagers shooting each other, and Black parents torturing and killing their babies. I see Black teens, from 11yrs – 17yrs old out at 11:00 pm 7 nights a week. What are they doing out that late? On Judge Joe Brown, and all the rest of those shows, there are always Black women that have multi children with all different fathers, and Black men that have multi children while they remain unemployed, and living off of the women. If you can’t afford to take care of 2 illegitimate children, then why are you allowed to continue having children while on Welfare? When I take calls at work, often I can not understand the Black person speaking – they have such poor grammer and enunciation. Some of the wealthiest Black people live in ATL, but they never give a dime to help with Hosea Williams (whom I met and marched with) Feed the Homeless Thanksgiving Dinner each year. Black rappers in the media make me sick with all the bling and furs they buy themselves. The ATL Black celebs dont’ do anything or support anything except their huge mansions. And then there is Michael Vick – despicable. All of this has made me prejudiced against Blacks, unless I KNOW THEM PERSONALLY. Then I don’t lump them into the same category. I hate to admit this, but it is the truth.

I agree with almost everything you wrote above. I am white by the way. However, I think we often misrepresent racism with predjudice. There is a difference. Racism is a blind hatred or dislike where predjudice is a preconceived notion.

A further thing that I think is important to note that never seems to be included is appearance. A person’s appearance is more than just black, white or latino. It goes on to include disposition, attire, size, etc. Am i more likely to be wary of a black guy wearing preppy clothes driving a prius, or a white guy wearing biker attire, with lots of tatoos, slightly dirty, riding a motorcycle? I am sure I would associate bad things more likely to the biker than the black guy.

The fact is, people are predjudice against a certain type of black person. There is a stereotypical black guy that people attribute their fears or dislike to. A racist person applies this to all people in a group regardless of evidence to the contrary. The average person fears or dislikes until more is known.

I agree that most whites (including myself) have a society ingrained fear or negative opinion of blacks, but I think it is far more complex than you lay out here. I do think that racism plays a role in the life of minorities, blacks especially, but I do not think that racism or predjudice is overtly keeping them back these days.

By this I mean I do not think that in the majority of cases blacks are being passed over for positions that they are qualified for, for less qualified whites. In fact, in many places these days it is completely the opposite due to government programs and the directives for increased diversity in the workforce at many companies. I think racism holds African-Americans back these days because it is a perceived slight or an internally created barrier caused by lack of encouragement or increased discouragement at a young age.

You could argue this is just as much a barrier, but I would argue against that because people have been rising above doubt for thousands of years.

Did you read the article? If you did then you obviously did not comprehend any of the content. You reaffirmed all of Mr. Wise’s points with your stereotyping and blanket indicting. The sad thing is you are oblivious to this fact. I guess we wouldn’t find any of this recidivism in predominately caucasian low income neighborhoods.? Apparently you were already biased and only saw the things you wanted see; those things that reaffirmed what you wanted to believe about millions of African Americans based on the actions of a few profligate individuals you have observed.

Well, I guess you don’t have a racist attitude toward anyone at all, huh? Wow! I sure hope you don’t ever pick up a bi-racial hitchhiker one day. Also, by the way, you misspelled “grammar,” not that you would care.

Your choice (and yes it is a choice) to be prejudiced against blacks shows a profound level of ignorance on your part. You lump all black people into one negative category until you get to know them. Wow, how generous of you. I guess you don’t believe in innocence before proof of guilt. With you, it’s guilty before proven innocent. I don’t think that is very fair to the good, sweet, kind, wonderful, hard-working black citizens that you are prejudging because you don’t know them. It’s people like you that make life difficult for black people. Why should loving, kind, intelligent black people have to put up with you and your judgments when they’ve done nothing to deserve it?

I doubt many blacks would want to know you personally given your deeply ingrained negative attitudes about a whole race of people. If you think you are superior to the black people you have taken so much pleasure in criticizing, think again. You have proven yourself to be incredibly judgmental, narrow-minded and critical, which is just as bad as what you’ve described seeing in some black people. Maybe you should do an assessment of your own character before pointing the finger at others. Whatever wrongs the people you have described have committed, they are not representative of all black people. I’m sure you wouldn’t like it if you or members of your ethnic group/race were prejudged so harshly based on the negative behaviors of a few.

Michael Vick paid his debt to society at this point, so maybe, just maybe, you can let go of that judgment, unless of course you want him to pay for that mistake for the rest of his life.

OK, let me get this straight. This man(or woman) writes his/her PERSONAL experiences and what he/she sees daily in Atlanta on this message board, while he/she openly admits he might have a problem with racism or be partially racist and then you two sons-of-bitches come on here and bash him/her for admitting something that would be hard for most people to admit or trying to point out grammatical errors(which by the way, is childish and pointless)…. what the hell are you two trying to solve?

The article is about WHITE DENIAL! Read the damn title please! He obviously read the article and realized he might be contributing to part of the problem in the U.S. He wanted to have a normal discussion about what he has been through personally. Kagemni and El Jefe, if you really want to give your opinion and tell this man ( or woman) he’s wrong, you need to share your own personal experiences and tell him/her why they’re wrong. Don’t just babble your words in a condescending manner and tell this person that their grammar is pitiful. It sounds like an argument that kindergartners come up with.

But I guess if you two are totally blameless and irreproachable about never making an assumption good or bad about someone based on race, then go ahead, keep up your bashing, and trying to prove you grammatically superior like a grade school teacher showing off her wasted liberal arts education.

Wellness

Carole Bartolotto: The problem with concluding that GMOs are safe is that the argument for their safety rests solely on animal studies. These studies are offered as evidence that the debate over GMOs is over. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Environmentalism

Margo McCall: There’s increasing evidence that adopting a plant-based diet is better for human health, the planet, and of course for the more than 9 billion animals that are killed for consumption each year in the U.S alone.